Snippets
by MissLaurenV
Summary: There were times when Molly Hooper had snippets - snippets of who she was, who he made her, and who she made him.
1. Tricky

**_Snippets_**

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_Chapter One - Tricky_

Molly Hooper was quickly growing to the conclusion that harbouring the world's only deceased consulting detective was trickier than first imagined.

Firstly, there were the troublesome hours he kept of an evening—night after night, pacing the halls of her tiny flat, drumming his fingertips against her kitchen bench. Playing that _bloody _violin, and God _knows _how he got it in the first place. Granted, she enjoyed her sleep, but she was no night owl. She liked to settle back with a hot cuppa and the newest episode of Glee and nod off like everyone else after a harrowing day at the office. Well, lab.

Then there were the experiments, one of which was unceremoniously splattered down the front of her favourite cardigan. Her normally ordered, simple home had suddenly turned into a cluttered mess; bookshelves stacked with test tubes, walls doodled with seemingly senseless jumble, books scattered across her hardwood floors. It was like living with a child. A stubborn, rude, _smart-mouthed _child.

But it _wasn't, _because the stubborn, rude, smart-mouthed _man _who lurked about her home at all hours of the night was tremendously handsome, and as brilliant as the day she met him. He had asked her to aid him in cheating his own death, told her he _needed _her, and yet she still struggled to stare into those magnificently vivid eyes or string a sentence together without a mumble.

She loved him, there was no question about that.

Huffing, she swung the bathroom door closed and looked over the dark, sticky gunk coating her cream sweater. Loved him she might, but _Lord _was the man infuriating.

She peeled away her top layer and tossed it to the tiles, along with her ballet flats and singlet top, and edged her jeans down her thighs until they pooled at her feet. Sighing, she flicked on the shower and waited for the water to run steaming hot, all the while eying the way her ribcage stretched against her pale skin, the way her hipbones greeted the laced edge of her underwear. The memory of _his _fingers grazing her skin, _his_ voice humming in her ear, set her stomach churning, and she wrenched her gaze away. _His _eyes had seen her, the man who forced her love into this false life, and walked all over her in the process.

"Stop it, Molly," she murmured, and shook off the thoughts. Reaching behind her, she unhooked her bra and threw it aside, and promptly stuck her hand under the gushing water, the heat singeing her fingertips. The room was slowly filling with near-suffocating steam, and there was something beautifully calming about the idea of being engulfed by it that very evening.

_Anything _to take her mind off things, it seemed.

"I'm sorry I commented negatively on the size of your breasts," a deep voice purred from behind her abruptly, and she jumped, doing her best to cover what little assets she had. He lingered in the doorway, icy stare sweeping over her with cool, clinical detachment—a look she knew too well, when it came to him. She gaped at him, searching desperately for the words—_any _words—to fire straight back at him.

None came.

Her flustered demeanour didn't faze him in the slightest, and she felt her heart leap as his eyes met her own. "I was quite incorrect on the matter," he said with a tiny smirk, and in an instant, he was gone.

Molly Hooper _knew _that harbouring Sherlock Holmes was going to be trickier than first imagined, but never in her wildest dreams had she thought it would be _this hard._

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_Author's Note: Snippets _is a new little 'fic' I've begun for drabble-mostly flashes of Molly's relationship with Sherlock here and there. The chapters won't be relating-this one takes place after the fall, but before the recent season. Enjoy, and don't forget to review!


	2. Obvious

_**Snippets**_

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_Chapter Two - Obvious_

Molly Hooper had realised something. Something that was blaring, undeniably obvious.

She was still in love with Sherlock Holmes.

But that wasn't all, not even close. What she had realised—so quickly; so joltingly—was that it wasn't really _love_ she was in. Not at all.

She had always considered herself a bright person. Kind, cheerful, intelligent, _loving_. Words she had heard many a time—thrown at her from family, friends, colleagues—to describe what she _was_.

But if these past two years had taught her something, it was that—whilst she may have been everything they all had believed her to be—she was more like the man she loved than she'd ever thought possible.

It had all started days earlier, when he'd left her in the stairwell of one of his client's tiny flats with a kiss-singed cheek and a head echoing the reminder of how she was _'the one who mattered most_'. She'd known then that, oh yes, she loved him still—in all his brilliance and all his beautiful glory.

Naturally, the next step was denial. Mountains of biscuits and a bottle of plonk, served with a side of _'you're over the bloody git'_. She had huddled into her worn couch, absently flown through numerous episodes of Glee, and tugged her engagement ring on and off her finger until a blister had formed alongside her knuckle.

Oh, right—the snake in her conjectural garden. _Tom._

That was, perhaps, the following stage—linked ever-so-nicely with denial—throwing herself, wholeheartedly, at her fiancé in the hopes that it would reignite a flame that never existed in the first place. More sex, more false proclamations of love. Yeah, that would do it.

Wrong.

All wrong. The reality was—as little as she cared to admit it—domestic bliss hadn't suited her. Not a day since she had welcomed Tom into her flat had she felt the _excitement _over a matching front door key. The _thrill _of a shared bed. The _delight _at the prospect of cooking him breakfast on a Sunday morning. In fact, the lack of privacy and wariness of his constant presence was tiresome, to say the least.

To think: that was all she'd always hoped and pined for.

_All wrong._

It was that very night—John and Mary's wedding night—that the weight of her realisation became complete. It was the moment Sherlock had opened his _stupid _mouth and described to them how he looked down upon those entering matrimony, and those who fell for social construct of _love_. His words were biting and cruel, as they so often were, and yet—moments later—he expressed more love for his best friend than anyone could have ever imagined possible.

She had tightened her hands around the serviette in her lap and felt the burning bubble adorning her ring finger sear as though it were fresh.

Sherlock was never looking for a romantic mate; he never would. He never yearned for the twin house-keys or the dip in the mattress as his partner slipped in alongside him or the bacon and eggs served hot the next morning. He didn't long for proclamations of love and lingering kisses and hosting an extravagant party to celebrate his commitment to another being.

And here was the thing: she didn't either, not really.

Of all the places in the world, she felt most at home hovering over a corpse in her cool lab, studying what had gone so wrong for the perfect machine that was the human body. She felt most comfortable deducing the life out of the lifeless; most natural in an environment where she disassembled a person, and then popped them brokenly back together.

She felt most _herself _alongside Sherlock—being the accessory he needed to reach his brilliant conclusions, and look on in awe as he did so.

Did it really matter what it was called—love? Admiration? _Sentiment_? Whatever it was that she had fallen into didn't really matter at all—all she could say for sure was that she wanted to be with him, in whatever sense he would allow. He would need a helper; he would need a friend; and she was certain that, one day, he would need a lover.

She could be his anything and expect nothing in return—because it would be the perfect amount of _just enough_.

Molly Hooper had realised something. Something that maybe—just maybe—the two of them could make work.

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_Author's Note: _This one was, obviously, set after _The Sign of Three. _Be sure to let me know your thoughts and leave a little review!


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